The present invention pertains generally to isotope separation and more particularly to laser induced isotope separation of molecular gases.
The conventional method of separating oxygen isotopes comprises a series of distillation steps which are both costly and time consuming. Additionally, the purity obtained by such methods, although adequate for most desired uses, is somewhat low. With the advent of ultraviolet gaseous lasers, unprecedented amounts of energy have been obtained and utilized to preferentially photodissociate isotopes of various molecular gases.